Essay:Socialism and poverty

Socialism, often promoted as a way to combat poverty, tends to fan the flames of the fire it's supposedly aimed at putting out.

Wal-Mart and its competitors have lately been eying low-income urban neighborhoods because they are underserved by retailers. A recent study by the Brookings Institution estimated that millions of low-income residents of cities pay excessively high prices for consumer goods in part because of a lack of competition. The report noted that in Chicago "higher priced, small grocery stores" are concentrated in the city's poorer neighborhoods—exactly the kind of place where big-box stores now want to open. [1]

Opponents of the free market, which they label as "Capitalism" as if it were self-evident that only "Capitalists" benefit from it, generally propose schemes which hurt the very people they claim they are trying to help. They are so opposed to anyone making a profit from investment, that they will target businesses for destruction or elimination - even when those businesses provide higher quality goods and services to inner cities and small towns.